First of Two Parts: Excerpts from ‘Accounting for Myself: An Economic Autobiography'

If the Clothes Don’t Fit . . .

Maybe the Job Doesn’t, Either

By Lyn Millner

MAKING BREAD is proud to present this sneak peek at a work in progress by a hugely talented young writer, Lyn Millner. An accountant turned free-lance writer, based in Florida, Millner writes and speaks frequently on money matters for various magazines and public radio. Here, we offer an excerpt from her memoir, “Accounting for Myself: An Economic Autobiography,” in which Millner explores such highly charged, personal territory as how her mother “conquered her money anxiety in midlife after divorcing my father . . . and how Mom’s journey freed me to overcome my own financial fears, quit my job as a CPA and follow my dream of becoming a writer.”  Below, she describes her first experience fitting into a "uniform" on the job.

Millner is a stylish, funny writer, with extraordinary insight into the ways in which money can control our lives—if we let it. We think she is a Bread Winner in the Making.

—The Editors

_______________________________________

investment (in’vestment). [f. INVEST v. + -MENT. Cf. the earlier VESTMENT.]

1.       The act of putting clothes or vestments on; concr. clothing; robes, vestments.

2.       transf.  a. An outer covering of any kind; an envelope; a coating.

3.       Comm.  The investing of money or capital.  a. In early use in the East India trade, for the employment of money in the purchase of Indian goods.

                         —From the Oxford English Dictionary

  _______________________________________

 started work in late August, on a day so hot that my underarms were slick                underneath my lightweight wool suit and silk shell.  I was grateful to be out of my car, which had no air conditioning, and inside the conference room where the orientation was.  The mahogany table looked like it was set for a fancy luncheon.  Stiff place cards stood at each of the place settings, and, at the center of the table, trivets held sweating pitchers of ice water.  Where plates should have been, there were white D-ring notebooks and stacks of paper in shrink-wrap for us to assemble.

I sat beside Karen Fox who, I noticed, was dressed more sharply than I was.  She wore a somber-toned suit in an ever-so-subtle burgundy pinstripe plaid and  flawless, polished heels. Her thick hair was swept back into a gold clasp.

I extended a hand to her and introduced myself.  I asked about her summer and she about mine.  Fine.  Fine.  Yes.  Yes.   I could have told her about the hiking I did last week: how tender my big toe felt inside its sensible pump, how the skin beneath my nail was the color of an overripe blueberry from the relentless descent.  There was a wicked part of me that wanted to tell her this, because it was a terribly inappropriate thing to do and because she didn’t seem like the hiking type.

Most of the women in the conference room looked like Karen: finessed, eager and professional, with their perfect purses, their tasteful scarves or pins and their high-quality suits, which fit perfectly.  They were simultaneously feminine and business-y.  When I dressed for work in the morning, I put on a blouse and a skirt suit and some shoes.  These women created “a look.” They were so doll-like, they could have been models for a catalogue shoot, rather than actual working accountants.  In comparison, I felt about as feminine as an appliance repairman. I fingered my earlobe and realized I’d forgotten to put on earrings.

I felt a familiar hypnosis, the kind I feel when I look through those catalogues.  You know the ones.  You’re supposed to be looking at the clothes – what shoes had she put on with that kind of skirt?  How had she accessorized? – but you are instead drawn in by the model’s arresting eyes, which she directs sideways at you as if to say, “Actually, I am part-cat.  I lounge around the house all day in my loose, white oxford shirt.  Later, some friends are coming over, and we’re going to eat tapas and plan our trip to Bali.  Don’t you wish you could be this happy?” 

Or she is in the park, sharing an ice cream cone with a man who has gorgeous hair and who wears a navy V-neck T, which shows off his fabulous tan.  They are not aware of you; they are laughing hard at something he just said.  They touch each other in a way that is intimate and happy, and you, instead of taking mental notes on what she’s wearing, you decide you want her life.  You look nothing like her, but maybe with a little help. . .  just a few changes.  Perhaps if you had her sheer berry lipstick or her purely porcelain face.  I want, you think, but it’s not so much a thought as a visceral desire.  This is precisely what the advertisers desire of you.  Maybe I’ll go shopping.

Our orientation leaders detail the plans for our first two weeks on the job.  We will go to Peachtree City, 30 miles south of Atlanta, where we’ll stay in dorms and attend firm-sponsored training classes for two weeks in order to learn what we need to know for our first busy season as auditors.  Everything is very fine and organized, and Edith is telling us everything we need to know for the trip – don’t forget to bring a sweater because the classrooms tend to be chilly – and it suddenly occurs to me that I will need an entirely different wardrobe for these two weeks of training.

“The dress is business casual,” Edith says.  “No jeans, but you know, khakis and slacks.”

I do not own any khakis.  I do not have anything that qualifies as business casual.  I have gym shorts and romper dresses, and I have business suits, and not even enough of them to get me through the first full week.  I do not have a simple white shirt or a presentable cardigan.  I will need to go shopping. 

I do not like to shop. I want my Mommy.  She is an expert dresser. She adored putting outfits together.  Before she left the house for an event, she turned her bed into a palette for her wardrobe.  She laid down garments and rejected them.  No, not rejected.  Tweaked.  Yes.  My mother was a tweaker.  She arrived at a base outfit fairly quickly, perhaps a skirt or a blazer around which to structure her look, and alongside this, she placed a blouse, some hosiery, a pair of shoes, all in their appropriate anatomical spots.  She was not like many women who pull an outfit out of their closet, put it on and then tear it off in frustration and disgust, leaving it crumpled on the floor. My mother treated each article of clothing lovingly, laying it on the bed and then returning it to her closet once she’d ruled it out.  She never got dressed until she had settled on the complete outfit, right down to the accessories.  Until that time, she stayed in her nubby, pink terrycloth bathrobe.

Because I was a teenager, I did what teenagers do: I rebelled against her by pretending not to care about clothes.  I tried to look busy when she called to me from her bedroom.

“Lyn?  Come help me decide what to wear.” 

This was followed by lots of questions that I didn’t know how to answer.

“What if I wore this shirt instead?  What do you think?  This blazer or the hound’s-tooth one?  And what about jewelry?  Are these earrings too dressy?”  She placed the earrings at the top of the bed, on the bosom of pillows. 

“Or how would this be?”  She pressed a brooch into the lapel of the blazer.

“I'd don’t know, Mom.  'Either one,” I'd say.

She would have loved for us to plan our outfits together, and knowing this, I didn’t ask her for what she most wanted to give.  She would not offer any advice unless I asked for it, and I did not ask.  Unless . . . there was an item I needed to borrow.  We wore the same size in everything.  And she often had just the thing.

I always figured that fashion sense couldn’t be learned.  It was something you were born with. There is help in our orientation packet.  A pamphlet peeks out of the white notebook.  "To be successful, you must project success," its cover says.  Curiously, no one mentions this collection of wardrobe suggestions as we work our way through the packet.

“Makeup enhances a woman’s appearance in business.  Should be subtle and well-blended.”  No, duh.  “Lipstick can make a woman’s teeth appear whiter.”  A section called “Camouflage” includes cautions like, “Be certain undergarments are not too tight.  Tight undergarments will create unattractive lines under outer garments.”

“I can’t wait to go shopping and really develop my own style.  Classic and sharp and all mine.”  This is Adele speaking.  She has worked at Coopers one year, and she is already leaving to accept a job at BellSouth, one of our major clients.  The Bell jobs come with terrific benefits, no overtime, a company-subsidized cafeteria and casual day the last Friday of every month.  Coopers people look down on people who take jobs at BellSouth, because they are taking the easy way out.  Their jobs will not be as challenging as the firm’s partner track.  They will go home at 5:00 sharp.  And where will they be in five years?  They will be mediocre Americans, with comfortable houses and families.  They will not be bigwig rock-star accountants.

Adele says, “And I’m buying a forest green Mercury Cougar.”  Her voice goes a little husky when she says this, as if this is a sacred purchase that will change her life.  I nod.  I do not share her fever for a Cougar, but I pretend to understand.  I am picturing that television commercial where the Mercury Cougar or some similar car is perched at a dizzying height on a sun-cooked mesa in the desert.  The camera circles the car, and you wonder, “How the heck did they get that car up there?”  It’s a little like what I’m feeling now.  How the heck did I get way up here on the eleventh floor of the Campanile Building in Midtown Atlanta working as an accountant? 

At home, I read the orientation wardrobe pamphlet to my roommate, Margaret.  She laughs at the part about tight undergarments.  She is in for another day of hanging around the house, developing pictures in her standard uniform: black Reeboks, khakis, white shirt and photographer’s vest.  She is doing something I don’t have the nerve to do.  She is inventing her own job as a freelance photographer.

“When are you going to figure out that no one can pay you what you’re worth?” she says to me.

She is reading Richard Leakey’s book, “People of the Lake,” about the lives of the early hominids. 

“We are exactly like the early hominids,” she tells me.  “Except that we gather money the way they gathered food.  You just have to find good places to hunt.”

She is building her freelance client base, working as a photo stringer and film runner.  But mostly, she has loads of free time, and she spends hours in the basement darkroom developing pictures of her cat.  One day, I come home to find a plastic grocery bag hanging on the doorknob and filled with hygiene products – a bar of Ivory soap, a bottle of Suave, Secret deodorant, disposable razors. 

“They must be from Rad,” she says.  She had told him she was having a tight month, and that she couldn’t afford a bar of soap.  She’d never mentioned this to me.

I didn’t use Suave myself.  How could anything that cost 77 cents be any good?  I bought salon-only shampoo that smelled like honeysuckle, hairspray that distributed itself in the finest mist.  Products with names like Essentials and Phytovolume.  My hairdresser was regularly featured in Glamour and Vogue.  Margaret let the next-door neighbor cut her hair.

 She tried to teach me to be lazy, to take naps.  To take time to sit around.  To not put myself in the position of being rushed.  That was a trap that most people fell into, and I was smarter than that.  I agreed with her.  Yes, I must make time in my busy schedule to be lazy.

“You should always ask yourself, what is the laziest possible way to approach any given task?”  She had shortcuts for everything. “Here’s how you take a nap when you have somewhere to be later on,” she said.  “You get completely dressed and ready except for your shoes.  These you leave beside your bed.  Then you fall asleep, and when you wake up, you’re ready to go.  All you have to do is slide into your shoes and grab your keys.”

She advised me that if something feels wrong, like working all day at a job in a building, then don’t do it. “Otherwise, you’re going to get all caught up in the plans they make, and you won’t even realize that what you’re doing is getting you farther and farther afield of what it is that you really want to be doing.  Next thing you know, you’ll be buying a brand new-car, which is one of the stupidest things you can possibly do, because then you have a car payment.  People with car payments are beyond help.”

She is the one who suggested that I buy the BMW 2002, a 20-year-old car without air conditioning.  And while my colleagues purchased new Honda Accords – that was the accountant’s favorite car because of its unparalleled dependability – I sunk money into a new engine, new radiator (did you know you can use a Pinto radiator on a BMW 2002?  It’s cheaper and has a much larger capacity), axles, CV joints, you name it.  I proudly drove my BMW with no air conditioning, feeling that it individuated me.

Besides, I would have plenty of opportunities to ride in new Hondas.

 _______________________________________

To Be Continued: In our next installment, our ambivalent accountant goes shopping for a new wardrobe befitting her new job and remembers some clothes calls she had with her mother.

 _______________________________________

This chapter first appeared in Gulf Stream Magazine. Read more of Lyn Millner’s “Economic Autobiography”  at www.lynmillner.com , or contact her at lynmillner@mindspring.com.